Box Nine

by Jack O'Connell

  Under his breath, Richmond whispers to Lenore, “What the Christ is this dickhead talking about?”

  “Guess what happens when Broca’s area has one of those industrial accidents?”

  The table is silent. The mayor looks uncomfortable. He stares down at his folded hands like he was praying.

  Woo looks at Lenore and says, “Detective …”

  “Thomas.”

  “Detective Thomas, any idea?”

  Lenore sighs and says, “Planeload of lawyers flies in the next day.”

  The table laughs and Woo loves it. He gives a huge smile, then moves his tongue in a circle, licking his lips.

  “A wonderful guess by Detective Thomas. Close, but no. You have an accident in this area, you can’t speak. You’re an instant mute. You don’t have any choice in the matter.”

  He moves his index finger to an area toward the back of the model.

  “This is another hot little town call Wernicke’s area. They have an industrial accident here, bingo, you can’t understand language, spoken to you, or written down for you to read, though you might be able to babble, make incomprehensible languagelike noise that no one else can understand.”

  “You’re an instant idiot,” Peirce says.

  Woo shakes his head. “No, not exactly, though you might be mistaken for one. At this point you’re all asking yourselves why you had to get up this morning to listen to all this.”

  He grabs the bubble and places it next to the brain.

  “As Agent Lehmann told you, two red pills were found in the course of searching the Swanns’ home. This is the second one. The first one we tested the hell out of. Both in the lab and—” he pauses, smiles—“up at Spooner Correctional Institute …”

  The Mayor interrupts and says, “None of you heard that, please,” and Woo goes on.

  “Because of the constraints of time and other factors, I’m forced to do some inexcusable generalizing right now. Broca’s area is that part of your brain where language is produced. Wernicke’s area is that part of your brain where language is understood and interpreted. When you swallow that red pill, it does something very interesting to you. It makes a crazy dash straight for both of those parts of your brain. Most drugs can’t do that. Your brain is usually protected by a curtain of protein that acts like a moat. Some things can get through. Like a lot of items from your line of work. Alcohol, cocaine, heroin. This red pill gets through with a vengeance, with an ease I’ve never seen before. And then it seems to know exactly where it wants to go. It seems to have heard all about these places called Broca and Wernicke. It seems to want to move right in, make itself at home. It gets busy right away. What I’m saying is that the drug somehow supercharges those two areas. It gives them a kind of speed and strength and flexibility, if you will, that they just don’t normally have.”

  Woo lets his eyes roam around the table, trying to read faces and gauge understanding.

  “Now, in its quest to upgrade your standard-issue language equipment, Lingo exhibits some side effects. It sends a few fellow travelers off to the pleasure centers of the brain. I’d consider this an inherent perk in the drug’s main business trip. There’s a big adrenaline release, like a solid amphetamine rush, but it’s very controlled, very regulated, an incremental buildup. It would most likely lack any of the jaggedness or anxiousness produced by the badly processed street speed that you people deal with.”

  Woo pauses, takes a breath and smiles slightly.

  “We gave a sample of the drug to two”—he pauses—“volunteers at Spooner Correctional. I don’t think I’m overstating the case to say that what I observed in one hour could have a revolutionary impact on fields as diverse as brain biochemistry and neuropsychology, cybernetics, linguistics, all the semiological disciplines, both hard and soft …”

  His words trail off as he realizes the futility of trying to make this group share his reverie.

  “We administered small amounts of the drug to two inmates and then sequestered them in a lab under absolute physiological and neurological monitoring. After approximately five minutes, we began to perceive certain changes in their general conditions, reflexes and motor responses, this type of thing. Their heart rates increased, but not alarmingly. Their brain activity was slightly elevated. But to cut to the chase, ladies and gentlemen, the evidence that something quite significant was happening within the confines of their skulls came straight from their own mouths.”

  He stops speaking, pauses for any questions or comments, making sure curiosity has peaked. Then he reaches once again into the satchel and withdraws a tape recorder. He places it next to the brain model and the bubble, adjusts a volume knob, then hits a button. The cassette inside starts turning and there’s a hiss of noise from a small speaker.

  First, Woo’s own voice is heard, in a whisper, saying, “Tape three. Two-fifteen p.m.”

  Then there’s a moment of quiet with the exception of some vague rumbling noise, caused, most likely, by the recorder being moved around. There’s some coughing, followed by the slightly echoing sound of a metal door being opened and closed.

  Woo says, “James Lee Partridge, age twenty-four, scoring for the WAIS-R—verbal, eighty-one; performance, eighty-four; full scale, eighty-two. Scoring for the WRAT—reading, grade three-point-two; arithmetic, grade four-point-eight; spelling, grade three-point-nine. ”

  There’s a pause, then Woo’s voice, quietly.

  “All right, now, are you feeling okay, Jimmy Lee?”

  A new voice, young, nervous, says, “Just the headache is all.”

  “Do you think you can read this? Here, just take a look … Yes, that page there, fine.”

  Jimmy Lee Partridge goes through some awful, phlegmy throat-clearing, takes a deep breath in through a clogged nose and reads: “When … the … day … of …”

  He reads in small, short blasts, word by word, as if they were meant to stand separately from one another. He reads them without any accent or intonation, in the manner that a sobbing, breath-grabbing child tries to speak.

  On the tape, Woo’s voice whispers, “Start over, and concentrate, Jimmy Lee.”

  There’s another pause and Lenore imagines the convict is trying to read the words to himself, before saying them aloud. She doesn’t like listening to the tape. For one reason or another, it makes her uncomfortable. But she makes herself, tells herself that, like a lot of uncomfortable things, it’s an important part of her job.

  Jimmy Lee Partridge starts again, and this time the words flow together without any noticeable pause or effort: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven …”

  Jimmy Lee breaks off into something of a cackle, his voice gets loud and thrilled and surprised and he says, “Pretty goddamn good, huh, Doc?”

  Woo just says, “Once again, Jimmy Lee.”

  And he reads: “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tonguesasoffiredistributedandrestingoneachoneofthemandtheywereallfilledwiththeholyspiritandbegantospeakinothertonguesasthespiritgavethemutterancenow …”

  Something happens. Lenore listens and stares at the recorder. She thinks something must be wrong with the recorder. But then she notices the same expression on all the other faces at the table.

  Jimmy Lee is reading so fast that it seems like a joke, like those TV ads where the pitchman tries to cram as many words of salesmanship into thirty seconds as is humanly possible. And then some. Jimmy Lee’s voice is going so fast he’s starting to sound like one of the Chipmunks from that cartoon.

  “AndresidmtsofmesopotamiajudemndmppadociapmtusandasiaphrygiaandpamphyliaegyptandpartsoflibyabelongingtocyreneandvisitorsfromromebothjewsandproselytescretansandarabianswehearthemtellinginurowntonguesthemightyWorksofgodandallwwereamazezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz …”

  And the voice
turns into something like the sound of a common summer insect recorded at a loud volume with a sensitive microphone. Something you’d hear on a nature show as you switched the channels on the TV on a lazy weekend. It’s just an ongoing buzz, a harsh, nervous-making, buzzing sound, and after a while Lenore can’t tell whether it’s really out there or just in her ear, in her head, a product of her own sinuses and faulty eustachian tube.

  Woo punches the recorder off and looks around the table at the troubled faces. He’s enjoying the reaction, Lenore thinks. It allows him to feel both essential to our work and a cut above us. In that moment of watching Woo’s face watching her own, she understands that the doctor has an ego that towers over the mayor’s, and Lehmann’s and Zarelli’s combined.

  “He was reading from a Bible that we happened to have handy,” Woo says. “But it could have been any book and the results would have been the same. Let me add to your amazement, all right? If I could go back to the prison today and ask him what he’d read for me, he would repeat it verbatim, at the same speed. And our tests show that his comprehension was one hundred percent.”

  He pauses, then says, “Before I answer any of your questions, let me risk poisoning your amazement with fear.”

  He ejects the cassette from the machine, flips it over, and inserts the reverse side into the bed. He hits the rewind button until the tape stops, then presses Play.

  His whispered, theatrical tape voice comes on, saying, “Tape six, four forty-five p.m. Conversational flow between James Lee Partridge and William Robbins.”

  There are two voices talking at once. They’re both speaking extremely rapidly and Lenore can’t separate them or follow the topic of their discussion. She thinks it has to do with women and/or sex, but she’s not sure. She thinks she’s pulled out the words grab, bra, leg, kiss, Carrie, fifteen, Mustang, rubber and screw. But she’s not sure of any of them and the longer the tape goes on the more difficult it gets to distinguish any of it until finally all the language blurs once again into that amplified fly-noise, an endless buzz that makes the hairs on Lenore’s neck stand up.

  When it’s clear the buzzing is driving everyone at the table crazy, Woo punches the recorder off.

  Peirce is the first to speak. “You’re telling us that those two people on the tape, those two convicts, were speaking just then. Having a conversation, right?”

  Woo nods. “That’s absolutely right, Detective. In excess of fifteen hundred words per minute passed back and forth between each of them. And that’s not all of it. There was a level of contact, a level of understanding, passing between them that’s difficult to relay to you. They were completely conscious of and continually integrating body language, changes in musculature, eye signals. There was a degree of speed and comprehension present in that dialogue that you or I …”

  Lenore can’t help herself. She blurts out, “Why are we involved?”

  Mayor Welby says, “We’ll be getting to that, Detective.”

  There’s an awkward beat, then Woo, staring at Lenore, says, “No time like the present, I suppose.”

  From the bottomless satchel he withdraws two of his own 8 x 10 black-and-white photos, places them flat on the table, and slides them to Lenore. She picks them up, knowing already what they are. She’s seen too many of this type of photo. She knows this because it’s lost the ability to shock her. The first picture is labeled Partridge. The second is labeled Robbins. They’re both morgue shots, taken from directly above the subject, under the harsh white light of powerful fluorescents. The photos show the subjects from the shoulders up, their heads resting on plain white sheets that Lenore knows are covering stainless-steel slab tables. The subjects’ heads are both shaved. In both photos, there are bullet holes in the head and face. In Partridge’s case, the upper left-hand portion of his forehead has been blown away entirely.

  Lenore stares up into Woo’s face and passes the pictures absent-mindedly to Richmond.

  “Don’t jump to any conclusions,” Woo says, almost under his breath.

  “In tandem with this is an additional effect that I, personally, find fascinating. The pathologist’s studies on both Partridge and Robbins showed an inordinate buildup of sperm cells and seminal plasma in the testes and urethral glands and a severe retraction of the muscles around the ductus deferens.”

  “In English, please,” Lehmann says without hiding his impatience.

  Woo nods as he speaks. “Both men were sexually stimulated. Very stimulated. Without the presence of any external erotic materials. Again, we were doing language tests.”

  “Speed, Spanish fly, and a Berlitz course in one quick pop,” Lenore says.

  “Let’s not jump the gun, Officer. We don’t know that these effects would present themselves in a lower dosage—”

  Lenore ignores him. “Quite a commodity. You take it to speak in tongues and as a bonus you get sex and power. Who’s going to want TV anymore?”

  “And the downside,” Peirce says, refocusing the table’s attention on Woo.

  “The downside,” says Woo, still looking at Lenore, “is its unpredictability. At full dosage, you can end up with what you heard on the tape. Homicidal rage. And death.”

  He waits until the photos have made their way around most of the table, then says, with his index finger pointed in their general direction, “This is where you people become involved. Because of our limited testing and the complexity of the drug’s chemical base, we’ve been unable to find out what a tolerable dosage might be. It’s theoretically possible that the individual’s language capacities can play a part in the drug’s level of intensity.”

  Lehmann pipes in with, “Crack and ice are bubble gum compared with this shit.” Then he glances down toward the mayor and says awkwardly, “Excuse the language.”

  The photos come back to Lenore, who says, “How’d this happen?”

  Woo takes a deep breath. Lenore thinks it’s for effect.

  Woo says, “This is a very powerful, but very unstable substance. From my observations I believe there to be three distinct stages of consequences to ingestion. The first you just heard, phenomenal increases in linguistic ability and comprehension. The second consequence follows directly on the heels of the first, and it’s a stunning, erotic high, a sexual euphoria, a burst of intoxication to rival anything you’ve come across recently, I assure you.”

  “And the last …” Lenore pauses, then says, “Consequence?”

  Woo gives an awful and smug grin and says, “Probably just what you’re guessing, Detective. Paranoia that increases unchecked, very likely to the borders of schizophrenia, if not beyond. Accompanied by a limitiess and very shocking rage. A homicidal rage.”

  There’s silence until Lenore says, “There was no way to prevent this?”

  Woo shakes his head. “It’s unlikely in this extreme condition that any tranquilizer would have done much good. But to be honest with you, we were somewhat unprepared for the explosion. The guards overreacted. I’m sure in your line of work you can understand how certain tragedies can be unavoidable. In retrospect we often see options that may not have actually existed at the time.”

  Lenore ignores the rest of the table and says evenly, “I’m not sure we know very much about each other’s line of work.”

  Woo nods and says, in the same tone, “Perhaps we can correct this in the days to come.”

  Zarelli comes alive and asks, “Well, what happens now? I mean, the convicts are dead. You burn their files and you burn the pill inside that bubble there, and, I guess, DEA—” he gives a head motion toward Lehmann—“tracks down the deal on the consulting firm and all …”

  “Not exactly,” Lehmann says, staring down at his sunglasses. “When we found the pills inside the Swanns’ spice jar they were wrapped in a piece of paper.” He takes a very small piece of crumpled-up paper from his jacket pocket and lays it on the table. “Just a small piece of scrap paper. Except that it had a phone number written on it.”

  “That connected to?” L
enore says.

  “Hotel Penumbra.”

  The detectives all look at each other and Lenore says, “The Capital of Bangkok Par.”

  Lehmann says, “Yeah. And I don’t think Leo and Inez were looking to book a getaway weekend, do you?”

  “What about Pecci?” Richmond asks.

  Lehmann shrugs. “Could be a deal couldn’t be cut with the family and the Swanns started looking elsewhere for connections and backers for their new venture.”

  “Is there any indication,” Peirce asks, “that any contact was made between the Swanns and any other Bangkok brokers?”

  Lehmann shrugs. “No idea. Bangkok is your sewer. We decided that step one was to get you people involved.”

  “If the stuff is out there,” Lenore says, “we’ll know about it soon enough.” She slides the morgue photos back at Woo.

  He collects them back into his satchel and says, “I would say that’s a correct assumption.”

  The mayor stands up abruptly and says, “I think we all know the critical nature of what we’re dealing with. Now, I’m due back at City Hall. I leave you people to coordinate your efforts, but I want to assure you that if there’s anything whatsoever that my office can do, please, have the lieutenant call at any time.”

  He gives a bouncing, loose-necked nod around the table, grabs Miskewitz’s hand, and pumps it fast. He starts to move away from the table, then hesitates and adds, in a lower voice, “Detective Peirce, could I see you privately for a moment?”

  Peirce seems to go a little white in the face. She rolls back from the table without looking at anyone and follows the mayor into the outer corridor. Shaw gets Lenore’s attention and motions after them with her head.

  “His little friend in the department,” Lenore says in an unhushed voice.

  Miskewitz rolls his eyes, runs his beefy hand over the roll of flesh under his jaw, and raises his eyebrows. “Well, people,” he says, “we were getting bored.”

  Shaw and Richmond laugh. Zarelli stares down at Lenore. Lenore stares up at Woo. Richmond cracks his knuckles and says, “So how do we work it?”